Human Rights Clinic

The Human Rights Clinic brings together an interdisciplinary group of law and graduate students in a course that incorporates both classroom study and hands-on participation in human rights projects and cases.

Cases and Projects

The Human Rights Clinic partnered with the Public Interest Clinic at University of Palermo Law School to advocate on behalf of prison guards who want to form a union in the province of Córdoba. Such guards have petitioned the Inter-American Commission about their grievances. During the spring semester of 2016 Clinic students traveled to Washington DC to appear before the IACHR and submitted a brief which summarized the guards’ petition and argued in favor of expediting that petition.

Since 2007, at least fourteen inmates incarcerated in various TDCJ facilities across the state of Texas have died from extreme heat exposure while imprisoned. TDCJ inmates and many TDCJ personnel are exposed to dangerously high heat levels on a regular basis. This practice violates individuals’ human rights, particularly the rights to health, life, physical integrity, and dignity.

The Clinic, in partnership with the Domestic Violence Clinic, the Legislative Lawyering Clinic and the Austin/Travis County Family Violence Task Force, is promoting the adoption of City of Austin Council and Travis County Resolutions on Freedom from Domestic Violence as a Human Right.

The Human Rights Clinic is an experience I think is priceless for those who want to pursue a career in human rights, and an excellent opportunity even for those with only a passing interest in the topic.